Signals
by Phax Halfelven
Summary: A short BHCG story. Some drama, some humor, and some fluff. Please RR.
1. Signals

TITLE: Signals  
  
AUTHOR: Phax_Halfelven  
  
SUMMARY: A short Beach Head and Cover Girl story. Some Drama and some fluff.   
  
DISCLAIMER: GI Joe doesn't belong to me I don't claim it does please don't sue.  
  
DEDICATION: For Slayne who taught me appreciation for the less popular Joes.  
  
Prologue   
  
---------------------------------------------  
  
Sunlight filtered through the murky windows making the rays into a dim green light in the large room full of workers. The noises of machinery ebbing and flowing like the tides of battle. Harsh voices of guards berating workers who weren't fast enough, the snap of a belt across someone's shoulders and the screaming that faded to whimpers.  
  
She watched the woman who'd been hit continue working through the pain with tears flowing down her face. It was worse to stop. Prisoners made that mistake only once. They learned to work through no matter pain, nor fear, nor the commands of the guards. She wondered absently how long she'd been here. Days? Weeks? Long enough for the mind numbing work to do it's job and erase all but a few images from before; a pair of kind blue eyes in a stern face. She didn't recognize the face. Red hair flowing like a river in the wind, it wasn't her hair. Her hair wasn't nearly that long, nor that color. Neither was it like the next image curly and disheveled. Another image, a black beret with a Special Forces patch. A cowboy hat through the windshield of a Tomahawk lifting off the ground.  
  
The last images, the green balaclava, golden hazel eyes the only feature visible, looking down on her into her own eyes. The fear in those striking eyes that seemed out of place and a name that went with the eyes. Wayne.  
  
In her inattention, her hand slipped and the metal she was cutting, cut back. The skin of her palm split and bled; she ignored the pain and the blood, kept working. Auburn locks fell into her face; she pushed them back with the injured hand darkening the strands with her blood.  
  
.....Three months earlier.  
  
Conrad Hauser, AKA Duke, walked the perimeter of the obstacle coarse with their resident drill sergeant, Beach Head. The green uniformed man took a moment to curse a couple of Joes back into action. "COME ON, CANDY ASS, MOVE IT! 'ZOOKS, MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER CAN RUN FASTER THAN YOU CAN! LADY JAYE, GET OUTTA THAT MUD THIS AIN'T NO SPA, MOVE YOUR ASS!  
  
Duke choked back a laugh at Jaye's acid retort. "Do the world a favor Beach, go out and get laid."  
  
"Is that an offer, CORPORAL!" Beach spat back.  
  
"In your dreams," Jaye's eyes rolled.  
  
"More like nightmares if you're involved. NOW, GET IT IN GEAR, OR I'LL HAVE YOU RUNNING LAPS 'TIL YOU DROP." They kept walking, around to the scaling wall, "CINDERELLA GET OVER THAT WALL NOW! THIS AIN'T NO FASHION RUNWAY IT'S A TRAININ' COURSE." Cover Girl shot Beach the finger, but tackled the wall in record time, for her, and moved on to the next obstacle. Beach hardly took a breath before moving on to the next Joe in line. "HIT THE DIRT, PRETTY BOY, GET UNDER THOSE WIRES!" Flint shot a look that promised a report for insubordination, but passed under the wires moving ahead of Shipwreck and Stalker who were in front of him.  
  
Duke nodded his satisfaction and watched the group finish the course. "Good work people, hit the showers and grab some lunch. Most of you have a session with Scarlett at 14:00 hours. I will be there so don't be late."  
  
Beach Head followed them off the course but went to his office instead of the showers. He hadn't been the one over heating in the muck and mud, and he had work to do. Ten minutes or so later a knock on the door brought his paperwork to a halt. "What in the hell do you want, Gung Ho," Beach was not amused at the big marine's interruption.  
  
"Nuthin' much, Sarg, just wonderin' if you'd like to tag along with some of us off base tonight. We're tired of the rec room, so we're headin' to the usual spot."  
  
"No, good buddy I'm on duty tonight, late watch." He glanced at the clock. "In fact I need to get this finished, so I can grab a bite and get back to my quarters by 18:30." He grinned behind the green balaclava, "Thanks for the offer though."  
  
"No problem, maybe next time."   
  
"Count on it." Gung Ho wandered away. Beach returned to work it was 12:45 hours. By 16:50 hours Beach was done, had squared away his desk, it was immaculate anyway, and had a meal. Walking down to his quarters he paused when he noticed the television on in the rec room, the lights were out and he couldn't see anyone on the couch. Beach Head entered muttering harshly about careless idiots wasting energy by leaving the TV going. He reached over the back of the sofa feeling for the remote in the dark, but his hand landed on something other than couch cushion. It was a body, soft and warm, and relaxed. A feminine voice cut through the low volume of the television.  
  
"If you wanted to cop a feel, Beach, all you had to do was ask." Cover Girl's voice held her amusement in check, but only just barely.  
  
"Sorry, Krieger, didn't think anyone was in here watchin'. Pretty much everyone is still on duty for another couple hours."  
  
"Everyone but the night shift." She stretched like a cat and sat up, the light from the TV shadowing her face and hair. "So, how's my PT score look."  
  
"Damn high, looks like those extra sessions are payin' off. Jaye and Flint were the only ones out there today with higher." His thick southern accent was pleased with her improvement.  
  
"About time, I thought I'd be gray before it started to show. Where you headed?" She leaned back on the arm of the couch to look up at him. He'd be lying if he said he didn't notice the way her tank top clung to and pulled at her curves nicely, but then he wouldn't say anything about it in the first place.  
  
"Headin' to my billet to get some sleep before I go on duty in a little over four hours. I've got rounds tonight, officer in charge and all."  
  
"I'm in control tonight. I know, I know, you already knew that. I'll see ya in there." He nodded and let her get back to the show. On his way back to his quarters he let his mind wander over the team members and he realized that of all the other Joes, Cover Girl was both the easiest and hardest to get along with. Beach head admired her sense of humor, and enjoyed the fact that she gave as good as she got.  
  
Not that Jaye and Scarlett didn't, but they didn't do it with him. Jaye, he figured, had to much at stake to risk pissing him off, and Scarlett just plain didn't get along with him most of the time. On the job they made a hell of a team, when paired, but she was usually partnered with Duke. He suspected that Scarlett's only real problem with him was his often chauvinistic sense of humor. He didn't really have a problem with the women on the team, as long as they worked as hard as the men did. He didn't expect more from them either, like some of the truly sexist members of the team. Beach Head was fair if demanding. He wanted everyone to pull his, her or it's own weight equal to what they were capable of; be they man, woman, dog, wolf or bird. To tell the truth, the girls did better than most guys on the team anyway, but he wouldn't say that to anyone of them.  
  
Cover Girl had surprised him most. He'd thought Jaye would be the joke on the team coming, as she did, from Martha's Vineyard and a luxurious childhood. She'd met him insult for insult though, and passed all his challenges with a determination that he grew to respect. When she'd proven impervious to his training technique he'd zeroed in on Cover Girl, the former model. Not a physically demanding profession, so he'd started in on her, and in the end she'd been more of a surprise than Jaye. Instead of sucking it up and going on, like Jaye had, Cover Girl had come to him for extra help when she'd had trouble, not many people had done that with him before, he was good at scaring the daylights out of trainees. He always respected those who came to him more in the end, and he'd come to admire her for it. They'd even built an odd friendship in it. She was a tank jock and grease monkey who tinkered with engines and he was an army ranger, a damned meticulous one. They had almost nothing in common, but still enjoyed each other's company.  
  
He had reached his quarters and stripped to his boxers and gotten into bed by the end of his musings and now drifted off wondering what the night shift would bring. They had a running battle of practical jokes among the night shift crews and he wanted to retain the upper hand. 'In fact,' came his last thought, 'I'll sacrifice an hours sleep to set up something for Junkyard and Mutt out on perimeter.'  
  
Beach Head ended up spending most of his shift in the control room watching things over the monitors with Cover Girl, if only to get away from Mutt's grumbling about the mud and caramel all over him and his dog. Apparently Cover Girl had gotten up early as well.  
  
"Nice work on Mutt's uniform change guys." Bazooka complimented as they entered the morning briefing at 0600 the next morning. "How'd you do it?"  
  
"I strung up some saran wrap over his normal watch position. One sheet on the tree he leans against and one above them on a branch. On the second I poured enough caramel that it would drip slowly over them while they sat there. I think Beach's idea was the best though. Junk pulling Mutt into the mud pit on the obstacle course." Cover Girl fell into a fit of giggles at the shock on Mutt's face when he'd surfaced from the mud on the monitors in the control room.  
  
"It was a bit of genius." Beach stated; he wasn't one to really boast too much. "I" his accent made it 'ah,' "sprinkled some gunpowder out so that Junkyard would be sure to catch a scent then drug the raw steak along the ground to the pit. I hung it on the bar in the middle, and damn if it didn't work like a charm."  
  
Mutt was sitting nearby, still in the soiled uniform with the grungy Rottweiler at his feet. "It sure as hell did, Junk pulled me right in and then used my back as a springboard to get his steak." They all laughed at that, Mutt included. "I owe you both and I will collect." About that time Duke and Hawk entered the room and called attention. They briefed the team on a mission in South America that would stop a gun running operation, proven to be selling to Cobra.  
  
Duke and Scarlett would be going in as buyers, while Flint and Lady Jaye would take over a supply company to get in. Beach Head was surprised to learn that he was to be partnered with Cover Girl for recon on the workshop where they'd set up some major players in the business to get caught red handed. They'd all train separately for the next three weeks, away from base and the others. Then be inserted into a local village for their op.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Beach Head shouldered his bags while Cover Girl paid the cabbie. He looked around the area feeling naked, both because he was standing in a wide-open square and because his ever-present balaclava was tucked safely away in his duffle. Cover Girl had finished and had her own bags on her shoulder now. He watched her slip into character and waited, eagerly, for the performance to come. She was good at this and a lot of fun to watch.  
  
"Oh Hon, it's so beautiful here." She looked around the jungle encompassing the village they now stood in.  
  
"Not as beautiful as you, Court." He slid his own character on like a second skin. She smiled and kissed his cheek. He pulled her back to him and his lips. They were posing as a honeymooning couple touring this region of Brazil. That gave them freedom to move around the area and search for the weapons factory. They'd talked about how far they would take their act during training, and decided they'd do anything but consummate a relationship that didn't exist. They'd worked out a system of signal kisses to be able to stay in character and still communicate in a non-verbal way.  
  
The kiss on the cheek, like she'd given him, was an all clear. His return kiss was reserved as a warning, in this case that she'd missed something and they were being watched. It was a movie kiss, open mouthed, but their tongues never strayed beyond their own teeth. She broke it off, and nuzzled her head against his chest. "Let's go check in, love." She stepped away and pulled him gently along by the hand into the registration office of the rundown little motel they'd use for a base of operations.  
  
A well dressed Brazilian man sat behind the counter watching a local news broadcast. He was clean-shaven except for a neat moustache, and his dark hair was impeccably styled. He flipped off the TV, and turned to them. "Welcome to the Amazon. I am Louis, the owner and manager of this, the Cayman motel. Do you have reservations?"  
  
"Yeah," Courtney stated, "under Krieg." She gave Beach a loving look, painting the picture that she was enjoying using her 'new' name. In actuality it was just a shortening of her own last name to use as a cover identity. They were both using their real given names as well; after all it was better to hide in a half-truth than a full lie. Lies were too easy to poke holes into. Beach pulled his hand free of hers and pulled out a few bills of the Brazilian currency to pay the deposit on the room.  
  
"Oh, and we'll need a do not disturb sign for the door. We are on our honeymoon after all." He leaned in then and kissed her cheek, having noticed that the eyes on them had moved on.  
  
"Of course sir. There you go." The little man gave them a key and the plastic sign, then led them to their room. Beach made a show of lifting his new bride off her feet to carry her through the door. He made sure to plant a luscious kiss on her while he kicked the door closed; just to be sure that if anyone was watching they got the message that these two were harmless newlyweds. He set her on her feet as soon as the door was closed and whispered so softly she had to strain to hear even though he was speaking directly into her ear.   
  
"There's probably bugs in here, make noise while I check." Make noise she did too, starting to moan and bounce on the bed.  
  
"So, Mr. Krieg wants a quickie before our first tour." He looked at her from half-way across the room. She shot him a sly grin, and giggled saucily. A corner of his mouth turned up and he shook his head while watching the equipment for spikes that indicated listening devices. He found five in all. One in a plant, two in strategic places on the bed, another in the bathroom, and the last in the closet of all places.  
  
Courtney, still putting on her show, made a crushing motion. He shook his head no and motioned her to finish up. She lifted her voice towards a crescendo, and Wayne threw in a "god, Court!" for good measure and grunted in satisfaction and amusement at her polite little bow.  
  
"We should go soon. We still have to meet the guide." She said with mock breathlessness.  
  
"Aw, can't we just stay here and do that the rest of the afternoon?" There was a mock pout in his own.  
  
"We could, but we already paid him, love. We don't want to waste the money. Come on get up." She raised herself off the bed, and they waited a few minutes making noise to simulate dressing. Then Wayne led her out the door, taking her hand after locking up. In the other he still held the bugs, and tossed them in an open room as casually as possible. Hoping he hadn't alerted anyone.  
  
"Why not smash them?" Courtney asked after they'd walked a minute, while they looked for the place where they were to meet their contact.  
  
" 'Cause as long as they keep broadcasting no one suspects anything and we won't have to put on another performance like that one."  
  
"Gotcha." The streets were dingy and hot with so many bodies crowding the place. They weren't really unkempt, but with all the rain from the forest the mostly unpaved roads were slush. Beach Head lifted Cover Girl off her feet to cross them.  
  
"Can't have my new wife gettin' all soggy, can I?" He replied to her look, and she rested her head on his shoulder. When he set her down on her feet she kissed his lips tenderly. It was within character, but there was a genuine thanks behind it. They walked another block and came to the cafe where they were to meet their 'guide'. After finding an empty table they ordered soft drinks without ice. Both knew better than to drink the water or eat the ice here, unless it had been boiled first. They didn't wait long.  
  
A man dressed in the local style greeted them using a code phrase. Wayne returned the confirmation phrase, and they put on a show for the patrons talking about what they'd be seeing on the tour of the rainforest. The trio finished their drinks and the 'guide' gave them a short tour of town. He pointed out this or that building of importance, and noted one off in the distance partially hidden by jungle. He told them it had been abandoned some time ago, but gave an aside that it was where most of the activity they wanted to check into took place. He pointed out that they should wait a few days before checking it over to let the locals get used to them wandering around. One thing they didn't have to worry about was blending in. There were plenty of other tourists for that.  
  
For the next two weeks, wander around is all they did. The guide showed them a way through the forest to the building they would be looking into upon Duke's signal. They walked around the village holding hands, or with arms around each other to keep up appearances. They fed each other on occasion and even let themselves be caught necking by local patrols on a couple occasions. Once they'd ducked into an alley so that the person tailing them would catch them in a "heated" moment. After the weeks of setting the stage they got the word from Duke. It was tonight.  
  
Beach Head pulled out the gear bag stowed under the bed, and Cover Girl grabbed the sleeping bag out of the closet. They'd made a point of asking Louis about secluded spots in the jungle for a little romantic getaway. He'd noted several that allowed privacy, but were close enough to the village for safety's sake. They'd scouted the places out on their wanderings and found one about a quarter mile trek from where they needed to be. The two of them walked passed the lobby and waved at Louis, as always sitting behind the counter. "See ya in the mornin' Louis." Beach called with a wink at the man.  
  
Their host waved with a knowing smile. If no one else was convinced at least the motel proprietor had bought the cover story hook, line and sinker. They made their way quickly but not so fast that they'd draw attention to themselves, holding hands all the way. Beach spotted the local patrol man and his partner before they'd seen him and pulled his own partner into a doorway for a quick performance. The gear bag settled gently to the ground while he ran his hands over her and kissed her in warning. She got his message and returned his attentions.  
  
The policemen walked passed, one muttering the word 'amour,' in a wistful way. After they were passed and out of sight Beach Head retrieved the gear and led Cover Girl into the trees. The two soldiers reached their "spot" quickly after that and he began pulling weapons out of the bag. Beach Head handed Cover Girl two M-9 laser pistols to compliment the standard issue 9mm Beretta they each carried, strategically hidden, when they went out.  
  
He pulled out another for himself and one of the bigger laser rifles that he preferred. Courtney, meanwhile, unrolled the sleeping bag and pulled out their uniforms. She turned away to shrug off the clothes she'd been wearing and don her regular uniform. Wayne Sneeden found himself unable to do anything but watch as the dress came up and over to reveal her slender curves. He watched her pull up the khakis, 'why haven't I noticed how tight they fit before?' covering the muscled legs and the dimples in her lower back where muscle met and turned into a smoothly rounded behind. She was all sinew and muscle, probably from the extra PT sessions with him, he realized. He'd noticed, of course, they'd been sharing the bed to keep up the illusion on the off chance anyone walked in while they slept, but he hadn't really seen it until now. When he snapped out of it the battered bomber jacket was being pulled up over her shoulders.  
  
Beach Head went back to his duty before she could turn, and had all the gear ready when she brought over his own uniform, including the beloved balaclava. "Thanks, here's a head set, get your gear together while I change. We move when I'm done." He too, turned for modesty and stripped off the civilian clothing. It was Courtney's turn to stare. His back was lined with hard muscle, not to mention the legs that were just hairy enough to emphasize his maleness. He had runners legs, and the power in his back and shoulders, tightly controlled nearly made her swoon with desire. 'I guess the playacting got to me after all,' she thought still watching him. He was a compact killing machine, like any of the jungle cats that even now could be watching from above. She pulled her eyes away with effort and finished stowing her gear pulling a baldric of grenades across her body. She then tossed her previous attire around the clearing, including the spare underwear she'd brought along. When she turned back she noted he was pulling the balaclava over his head.  
  
"Wayne," she called softly, and he turned before pulling it down. Courtney walked up to him and pressed her lips to his using the signal for caution and something a bit more. Then pulled the garment down for him. "Be careful."  
  
He was surprised. She didn't need to see his face to know that, after so long seeing him in that mask. All she needed to see were his eyes. He pulled her into a tight embrace after the surprise passed. "You too, Courtney." The tender moment was gone, Duke's voice came over her earpiece with a time table checking that they were all in position. The professional facades slipped over both soldiers. Cover Girl relayed that they' been delayed by the local patrol, but were enroute to their position.  
  
Beach Head tossed his former clothing around the area as she had and settled his own headset over his ears. They reached their positions and radioed in to Duke. Then settled down to wait for Lady Jaye's signal to move in. It was silent for a long time before the triple click finally came over the radios. They double clicked the acknowledge and moved forward. Two heavy military trucks rolled out of the old hangar, to their right, and the all clear clicked over the earpiece.  
  
They were out of the brush by now, in the clean land between the building and the forest. Cover Girl spotted Duke and Scarlett to her left, and farther along a group of the Brazilians they were working with. Cover Girl jerked a Flash Grenade from its holder and pulled the pin with her teeth. In an almost simultaneous motion with Scarlett she let it fly. It broke a window as it sailed into the room beyond and three other similar objects followed behind it. Everyone in their party hit the dirt as first the flash grenade went followed by the three concussion grenades. The screams set off by the blinding flasher were silent after the concussions went off. The teams regained their feet and started forward again toward the building.   
  
Duke and Scarlett went first, followed closely by the ranking Brazilians. Cover Girl and Beach Head had just entered when the shooting started. Beach spun around as the Brazilian behind him was hit and killed, falling where he stood like a marionette with its strings cut. Beach swore violently and started firing into the night dark jungle at black in black figures there. Where before there had been silent stillness, the night deteriorated into the confused chaos of battle. Dying and injured men's screams, gunfire, the high pitch of Beach's laser rifle as he methodically cut down attackers, commanding officers shouting orders trying to regain control of ambushed troops, and finally Duke's steady voice calling for extraction. An endless eternity of minutes later, they heard the welcome deep chop of the Tomahawks rotors. They touched down in front of the hangar's open door.  
  
"Somebody call for a cab?" Wild Bill's Texas Twang came over the headsets they all wore, "Climb on."  
  
Duke and Scarlett carried an unconscious arms dealer out to the choppers and tossed him aboard. Cover Girl laid down suppression fire and followed Beach Head who had another of the criminals in a fireman's carry. He dumped the man on the floor and climbed in after Duke and Scarlett. Cover Girl secured herself on the landing skid until they got the unconscious men out of the way. She was still there as they lifted off.  
  
About five feet off the ground they began taking machine gun fire. 'It didn't do any severe damage to the chopper so it must not be the heavy duty stuff,' Cover Girl thought. What it did do was give the chopper a vicious quake as the bullets hit the rotor. Cover Girl lost her footing on the skid and began to fall. Beach Head saw her slip and was close enough to grab for her. He over shot her hand and missed, but Cover Girl latched onto his wrist as the chopper steadied. "I've got ya, Cinderella." She dangled below and Bill held them really steady so Beach could pull her in. Another Spray of bullets hit and one grazed Cover Girl's forearm. The only physical damage it did was cut her enough to make her hand spasm loosening her grip on Beach Head's arm. She slipped free and watched his eyes fill with fear. "Wayne!" Was that her voice filled with terror? 'His name, why did I scream his real name?' she wondered as she fell. Then she landed flat on her back, on the muddy ground. The impact drove the air from her lungs and she gasped it back before passing out.  
  
"Courtney! Shit! Bill put us down Courtney's on the ground!" For the first time since he'd entered the military, Wayne Sneeden was panicked.  
  
"Can't do it pard, anymore bullets hit the rotors and we'll crash on top of her." Wild Bill raised them above the trees. The second chopper was ahead of them in the distance.  
  
"Damn you! put us down! I ain't leavin' her behind..." Beach was out of control, so Duke did the only thing he could and punched him dead in the face knocking him cold.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Courtney woke seated, and tied in a chair in a very dark room except for the single blindingly bright light shining in her face. There was a presence just behind it. She could make out an outline, but no details that might reveal the identity. She quickly slipped into her Cover Girl persona.  
  
"Who are you?" A voice from the dark. The voice was smooth, no accent she could detect, nor was it familiar to her in any way. Cover Girl held her tongue. "Who are you!?" The voice was more forceful, anger edging in. Still, she didn't answer clenching her jaw tight. "You should really answer." that voice slipped into an oh so smooth tone. "It will go bad for you if you don't." Stony silence from her. "I had hoped you would co-operate."  
  
Cover Girl looked down at her left leg as the muscles in her calf started to contract and relax rhythmically. It was a slow tighten and release, nothing she couldn't handle. Again the question followed by her silence. "You noticed the muscles in your leg by now I presume. Let me show you what happens when we add more power." Her calf was now twitching, and the slower contraction and release had moved to her thigh. "What if both legs were involved?" The other leg started twitching as well. It still wasn't something she couldn't handle. The question came once more. When she still refused to answer the figure outline made a gesture and every muscle in her body began a violent twitching. Even her eyelids and tongue betrayed her. Very suddenly it stopped.  
  
She sat breathing hard, gulping air as though she'd just gone through a particularly rigorous PT session with Beach Head. "You see, I have found that for one like yourself, a physical threat is a waste of effort, and a waste of prisoner. After all there is only so much pain one can take before succumbing to it. However, with this method it gets under your skin, to no longer have control of your own body, and the exertion tires you but does no harm unless I have the current raised drastically high too quickly. In addition, I can control which muscles I want to stimulate. What if your eyes were to twitch for hours endlessly with out relief?"  
  
Cover Girl made a point to keep her face impassive, so she didn't show how much it really did bother her. The muscle spasms started in her legs once again. It went on for hours like that, some times the muscles of her legs more often her eyes or tongue, or her hands, arms, shoulders, forearms, feet, neck, back, even her butt spasmed at some point. Nothing mattered any longer to Cover Girl, only surviving, only answering with silence or her codename rank and serial number mattered. Hours meshed together and time lost its meaning until she had no idea she'd been in that room for three weeks without relief. Only the darkness interrupted by questions answered with silence. Eventually even the satisfaction, that they'd resorted to physical violence after all, mattered little.  
  
'Finally,' she thought 'light, real sunlight.' One eye opened slowly, squeezing shut against the pain. 'Now I know what rode hard and put up wet means.' A cool, damp cloth came onto her forehead. Gentle hands ran it over her face wetting cracked dry lips. She suddenly realized the only moisture they'd known in a long time was the blood that seeped over them when they split, and she was thirsty.  
  
Voices came to her speaking in a language she should know. She become conscious of that fact and suddenly, slowly, it came to her. Feminine voices, speaking Spanish, asking if she was all right. She tried to get her mouth around the words and winced again. Even her blasted tongue ached. She felt the urge to stretch, tried to, and screamed in agony. She couldn't tell between the ache of bruising and the ache of muscles constantly flexing. All she knew was the pain. A voice again, the first that had spoken, telling her to lie still, the pain would be over soon. Hands again, turning her over onto her stomach, on whatever softness she lay, and massaging the muscle aches away. In her legs, arms, back, and shoulders, even her neck and hands and feet began to feel relief spread through her and with it came tears of release, cleansing, healing.  
  
As the muscle aches subsided, she began to discern which bruise was where. Her mouth got around the language this time. [Thank you,] Cover Girl opened her eyes again and looked around the room at the faces watching her. The woman closest to her held out a cup of water. [You must drink, as much as possible. They come soon to take us to the factory where we will work.]  
  
[Thank you. I'm Cover Girl, do you know where we are?]  
  
The woman shrugged. [Magda, and no only that it is a work camp. We will soon know only the work.] There was a sadness in her voice, but Cover Girl noticed all the women eying her warily. [Did you refuse to work is that why you are treated this way?]  
  
[No, I refused to talk. They wanted to know who I was and who I work for. We attacked their operation trying to end it.]  
  
[You are here to make them stop.] Many of the faces were smiling now, in relief.  
  
[I was, now, I'm a prisoner, a worker, like all of you.] Some of the smiles faded, and a large door opened. The women pressed away from it in fear and loathing. A group of eight men came into the room. They broke into pairs and began raping some of the women. Two of them came at Cover Girl and she could see in their eyes they intended the same with her. One grabbed her roughly and her defense training kicked in. She flipped him over her shoulder and broke his neck in a single smooth move. The second rushed her and she landed the heel of her palm on his nose shoving it in his brain and killing him instantly.  
  
The others now realized what was happening, and all six came at her. She landed a right hook on the first, and her knee connected with a groin. A third came in and she grabbed his wrist using his own momentum to twist the arm behind him; then jerked it up past the hammer lock until the sickeningly wet pop indicated his arm and shoulder were no longer joined. The rest of the group came in together and took her down. The beating started, continuing for long minutes until that voice stopped it. "I did warn all of you about your behavior. Maybe now you've learned your lesson and this conduct will cease. As for you, little minx, they won't touch you again, so no more killing." With that, he was gone, and after a few minutes and much pain for Cover Girl, they were loaded onto a cargo truck. They were driven to a factory and off loaded. After, there was nothing but the work.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
Beach Head roused before they reached home base. He sat away from the others, elbows on knees and his face hidden in his hands. Scarlett and Duke watched him with concern. Both wondered less about what was going through his mind and more what had happened while he and Cover Girl were alone for two weeks on the mission. Duke had already given orders that Beach's conduct was not to be reported in either verbal or written form. He knew Hawk didn't care what the troops did in their off time, as far as personal relationships went, as long as it stayed off the battle field, and out of reports. There were plenty of people over his head that didn't feel the same.  
  
Duke, personally, was grateful for Hawk's disinterest. He and Scarlett both would be out of a job if not for Hawk. For that matter, so would Flint and Lady Jaye, and unless he missed his guess something had happened to change Beach Head's views on interpersonal relationships within the team.  
  
The chopper touched down and the whine of the rotors died before Beach Head forced himself to move. Their prisoners were secured in the brig, and the officers involved were called for debriefing. Flint and Lady Jaye gave account of themselves as did Duke and Scarlett and finally Beach Head. Everyone was demoralized by the loss of Cover Girl. They filed out silent and upset by the rebuff Beach had received after his request to lead a rescue mission to get her out.  
  
The four others were shocked when Beach maliciously pummeled the wall with all his strength, leaving a large dent in it's surface. "Hey, cut the crap, Sergeant!" Duke ordered.  
  
"Why? I didn't use your hand, did I? Let me serve my penance in peace." The accent, usually so controlled as to almost disappear, was thick and heavy with emotion.  
  
"What's with you, Beach?" Scarlett asked putting a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her off, not ready for comfort.  
  
"It's my fault. I lost my grip. Dropped her. I let down a damn good soldier, and a good friend. But you, you left her there, I'da gone back, not left her behind!" The glare he shot at Duke could have melted plate metal.  
  
"Do you think I wanted to leave her there! I'm her commanding officer. I'm responsible for her."  
  
"No! not when I was the one lookin' in her eyes while she fell. Not when I was the one partnered with her an' watchin' her back the last two weeks. Not when it was my damned idea to come up with that system of signals to fit our cover. I outsmarted myself with that, damn it! Most especially not when it was my name that came from her mouth as she slid outta my hand." His voice lowered here, deepened further, the memory of her scream tormenting him. "She was scared, Duke. I've never seen her like that. Do you know what they're probably doin' to her right now?"  
  
"Yes," Duke's voice was grim, and he set a hand on Beach Head's shoulder "probably better than you do, Beach."  
  
"Then why ain't we goin' after her?"  
  
"Because this mission isn't over. We have prisoners to interrogate, and maybe, just maybe we'll find her." Duke's hand was reassuring, and his voice held hope. Beach nodded and left them to return to his quarters. Duke and Flint worked the prisoners over for the next two weeks, without much success, before giving them to Beach Head. Not only was he the scariest member of the Joe team, when he wanted to be, he had a knack for finding a weakness in the psyche of a prisoner and exploiting it successfully. He did it in a relatively short amount of time, and without damaging the prisoners too badly, if you count giving them nightmares for months undamaged.   
  
After four days with Beach Head they had all the information they could get from the men they'd captured, and it was all they needed for the op. This included locations of factories, safe houses, the names of the ones really in charge, an how many civilians they had pressed into working in the factories, mostly all were women. They worked out the mission parameters in six days, and four days after that they were back in Brazil.  
  
Beach had wanted to head up the team that was responsible for cracking the Safe Houses, but Duke needed his expertise taking down the factories, and freeing the workers. They'd been at it for damn near three weeks now, and were hoping this would be the last. They had to be careful, so none of the guards panicked. It wouldn't do to have any of the workers killed in the confusion. They had yet to find Cover Girl, nor had they gotten word from the other teams. They were all starting to lose hope.   
  
On this particular op, Beach was crouched with Snake Eyes and Scarlett on the rooftop in the light of the sunset. They were waiting to drop through the skylight in the center of the building's roof. Duke's people on the ground were surrounding the building as Beach Head watched the workers through the dingy panes of glass. Something happened out of his view inside, and he radioed Duke on it.  
  
"That's a go, people, use the distraction and take out the guards." Duke's order came back to them. The three roof bound Joes checked the hand brakes and the rest of their gear a final time before dropping down through the glass. Beach Head finally got a look at the commotion. One of the women was being beaten, at least he thought it was a woman, he couldn't really see the victim for all the guards in the way. He took aim with his M-9 laser pistol and cut through the guards not in among the civilians. He'd leave that for Duke's people, who had a better chance of getting them with out harming the workers.  
  
Some of the guards figured out they were under attack and used the workers as shields. One man, well dressed and fitting the description of the man in charge of the whole thing, held a disheveled worker, with long auburn hair, at gun point. Beach caught a glimpse of the face behind the hair and sucked in a breath at the damage he saw there. She was almost unrecognizable with yellow-brown faded bruising, but only almost. He'd know those eyes, that nose, the brow, the cheekbones, the chin and the lips anywhere. He eased his grip on the brake and started slowly down the line behind them. Duke stood in front of them trying to negotiate her release.  
  
Before he'd even reached the ground, Cover Girl's arm came up between her and the gun arm. She knocked it away savagely. The gun discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. The bullet lodged in a heavy wooden beam above them. Cover Girl was all over the guy like a wild animal doing as much damage as possible. Finally, she broke his neck, with a satisfied growl. Beach was, by this time, standing close enough to hear her when she said, "you should have picked a hostage that hated your voice a little bit less, bastard." She turned away then looking around the room.  
  
There she stood watching the clean up go on around them, and Beach Head could only stare at her. Her hair had grown longer, it'd been short when they started this three months ago, not quite as short as Lady Jaye's hair, but short all the same. It was now down between her shoulder blades. Even grimy and bruised, she was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in a long time. Duke walked away from them, knowing she was in good hands now.  
  
His CO's movement snapped Beach out of it, and he walked to her, still from behind her. "Courtney," he knew enough to get her attention before touching her after a situation like she'd just been in. She turned to him. There was a blank look in her eyes that worried him. Then her eyes met his, held, and she came back into them. He sighed relief.  
  
Someone spoke behind her after the blonde walked off. 'Who's Courtney?' she wondered, and turned to find a man in green fatigues and a climber's harness with a green hood covering his face. Then her eyes found his in the mask, golden hazel eyes, from her snippets of memory. All at once those memories flooded through her, and she remembered that she was Courtney. "Wayne," she took a step forward and collapsed in exhaustion. Beach Head saw it coming and was there to catch her as she fell. He stowed his weapon and scooped her into his arms, then carried her out to the medical tent and Doc. Lifeline and Doc both rushed forward with a stretcher. Beach lay her reverently upon it as though she would break if he were less careful.  
  
"We've got her now, Beach Head, Duke needs you to finish the cleanup in there." Doc stated as Beach Head started to follow them.  
  
"I'll be back, but keep us posted on her status." Beach did a good job of hiding the swell of emotion that urged him to stay with her.  
  
"Not to fear, fair warrior, I'll let you know after I examine her." Beach nodded and strode away. The after battle duties dragged on all the Joes waiting for word on Cover Girl and other injured friends. The freed workers were sent with the Brazilian government officials to find their homes, bodies cleared away, and charges were set in the building. Beach Head took no small amount of pleasure watching that particular factory blown to hell. Doc called in finally, while Beach was trying to clean up as best he could.  
  
"Good news, Joes, Cover Girl is going to be just fine with a little rest and lots of fluids. Come by and visit if you want more details." Beach sighed his relief, feeling his muscles un-bunch, and finished his duties more easily knowing she was okay.  
  
"You'd better get over there and see Cover Girl before they take off, Beach." A voice came from behind where he sat eating. He turned to see Scarlett standing in the middle of the mess tent, with her hands on her hips. "She's awake, and even though she hasn't said anything or asked, she's looking for you."  
  
"Don't know what you mean, Red, we found her and she's safe now. My duty is finished." Why had he said that, he wanted to talk to her, didn't he?  
  
"Cut the crap, Sneeden! Do yourself and her a favor, don't ignore what the rest of us saw in those eyes of yours when you saw her in that factory." Her gesture encompassed the rubble out the entrance flap of the tent. "At least go see her and ease her worry." Beach Head was just too spent to come up with a deservingly snide remark to throw back at her. He just stood and walked out of the tent, abandoning his meal. He was still in ear shot when Scarlett started grumbling and caught Lady Jaye's comment. "I swear, why is it that military men, all men for that matter, refuse to see what's right in front of them."  
  
'Oh, I see it,' he thought in response, 'and it scares the hell outta me.' He kept walking though, knowing he owed her the visit. Soon he'd entered the tent housing the wounded. Doc waved him over. "She's out in Duke's tent. We figured she'd appreciate the privacy until we have to leave. Go on through this and its just behind." Beach just nodded and walked on.  
  
Cover Girl was alone in the tent, lying on a cot with a couple pillows propping her up in a sitting position. Her eyes were closed and there was a cup of water in the hand resting on her lap. The cup was half full and luckily sat perfectly so that it didn't spill on her thigh. Beach moved silently forward to take it so she wouldn't spill it in her sleep. He'd barely laid a hand on it when her soft voice stated, "I'm not done with that yet."  
  
He met her blue gaze, "sorry, thought you were asleep, and I didn't want you spillin' it all over my...friend." He chickened out. He'd started to say my Cinderella to try and be romantic, or my wife referring to their cover story to be funny, but he'd chickened out. He ran from the intimacy with his tail between his legs like he always had.  
  
"No, I wasn't asleep, just thinking, resting, letting my mind wander." She shifted on the cot and winced as she did.  
  
"You okay?" Concern for her hit him hard. He noticed that she looked smaller somehow, more vulnerable here in the get up of a patient. She'd had a bath, her hair was clean and flowing down her back, the bruising was still there, but he could see past it. She was thinner than she had been on their mission, he didn't like that, but there was nothing he could do about it here.  
  
"Yeah fine, just sore all over, bruises and hard labor." The hand around the cup was bandaged, and there was a small gash above one eye, closed with a butterfly stitch. His eyes hardened at what had been done to her, whether it was real or his imagination. "Hey, what's up?" Her eyes were still beautiful. Crystal blue eyes, that right now, were concerned for him. He took a deep breath and looked away.  
  
"I'm sorry." He looked down at his hands in shame at the weakness he heard in his own voice.  
  
"For what?" She watched him more worried now that she couldn't read his eyes.  
  
"I dropped you. I just didn't have a good grip when you slipped." His voice sounded odd, full, strained.  
  
'Translation,' she thought, 'I'm kicking myself every time I see bruises I should have prevented because I'm a big strong man and I should have protected you.'  
  
"Wayne, you didn't do this, my grip wasn't so great either." She barely caught the outline of the sardonic half-smile behind the balaclava, before he buried his head in his hands. He was starting to scare her. This behavior was very unlike the man she'd come to know and rely on to be a rock. "Damn it, Beach! You're not making sense, and would you look at me already, I can't see your eyes." That last shocked him, she could tell by the way he stiffened on the edge of the cot where he'd taken a seat.  
  
He reached up to remove the balaclava, and she put a restraining hand on his arm. "I don't need to see your face, Ranger Man, just your eyes." Her voice was full now too, of an emotion he'd never heard there before.  
  
"I know you don't, but I'd rather not have the barrier there, between us." He finished pulling it off. Then his eyes met hers. She held her breath at what she saw there. Her translation was wrong, while he was sorry that he'd dropped her, he wasn't needlessly apologizing for the things he couldn't help. There was something else, something she couldn't define. A tenderness that was out of place on him, but he was looking at her, and it was there. "I wish I were better at this, Courtney, for your sake, but I'm not. Never have been. Everybody else in camp sees it and they think I don't. I do though, and I'm runnin' from it. Runnin' like the hounds of hell are after me. 'Cause I don't know the right thing, how to say..." He trailed off frustrated.  
  
"Try Wayne, please," tears were forming in her eyes and she cursed them silently. She didn't want him to see her as weak, helpless. She reached up to brush them away with the hand that wasn't on his arm still.  
  
"Don't damn it! You think I mind if you cry? I don't. Yes I'm a hard ass, and a bastard sometimes, but I am not a prick. You know what I'm tryin' to tell you, I know you do. This feelin' the one I can't explain the way I want to, it hit me when I watched you fall. And if you think I didn't cry, you'd be dead wrong. I waited 'til I was alone in my quarters, of course, but I cried like a baby." He sounded like he might cry now.  
  
"Why?" Her whisper was broken by the lump in her throat.  
  
"Because, I'd just watched the best part of my life slip through my fingers, quite literally, and I didn't know if I'd ever get her back." The tears finally won and spilled down her cheeks. He turned more fully toward her on the cot and caressed them away. "I'm not good with emotion, and I'm damn terrible at lettin' people know how I feel about them. Unless I hate their guts, it comes of being raised almost entirely by a former US Army Drill Instructor. He didn't know how to show it either. I want you to know how I feel about you, but I'm, I don't know how to say it." The smile that brightened his night was filled with mischief, and more than a little sexy.  
  
"Then give me a signal." The tone in her voice made him ache.  
  
He dropped the balaclava on the blankets and framed her face with his hands. Slowly, he moved into her space until their breath mingled and her eyes closed. He smiled just before his lips touched hers tenderly. They'd shared a lot of kisses on their mission; this was different.  
  
His lips hovered on hers, learning their outline, feeling the chapped places still healing from her dehydration. He traced the line of her mouth with his lower lip and she sucked it in. Then he took her mouth, possessive, but loving. His tongue tickled hers, an invitation to play, and she pulled him tightly to her taking control of the kiss from him; exploring his mouth inside and out. He pulled out slowly and returned for more, letting her touch, her smell, her taste envelop him. Finally, his lungs burning for air, he left her mouth with a series of small kisses on the lips, and a final peck to the end of her nose.  
  
"What was that signal for?" The breathy quality was not fake this time, and it did wonderful things to his mind and body both.  
  
"That," his voice was pretty breathy in its own right, and she shivered against him, "that was the signal that you're back safe and sound where you belong, in my arms." He didn't run this time, and when her response was to pull him into another kiss, he never ran from her again. 


	2. Homecoming

TITLE: Signals - Homecoming Interlude  
  
AUTHOR: PhaxHalfelven  
  
SUMMARY: A short sweet interlude where Beach helps Cover Girl with some things and gets to show a softer side after his return home from Brazil. Purely well, mostly fluff, and I don't know why it wouldn't leave my head but it's written now and ha! I'm back to what I was working on before. Please R&R.  
  
DISCLAIMER: Don't own the Joes, they belong to comics and cartoon corporations that have much more money than I and they'd laugh if they saw just how little they'd get if they decided to sue me for playing with the Joes, so please don't and well, I am not making money off this so why sue me in the first place.  
  
NOTES: Follows Signals and it'll be as a second chapter on fanfic.net website.  
  
Thirty-six days. Two in March, four in May, and the entire month of April had passed between them since the night he'd helped to load her on a chopper with the other wounded and sent her to safety. Thirty-six days, it was too long to be without her annoying tendency to bring out the part of him that was a sissy-boy in love with her, too long to be without her eyes grinning or more often glaring at him, and definitely too long since he'd heard her laugh and felt her presence.  
  
As Wayne R. Sneeden, better known by his teammates as Beach head, followed his fellow Joes off their ride and back onto home soil finally. He knew that if he'd survived this long a wait he'd survive a bit longer. He was in a dangerously foul mood, more than usual, and only really desired three things at the moment. He wanted to see Cover Girl, take a shower, and spend some time away from the nutcases he worked with on this mission. Namely a certain red-headed black belt Karate instructor. Not necessarily in that order either.  
  
Before he could get to any one of those desires he had duties to attend. First of all was cleaning and stowing his weapons and the gear he didn't keep in his billet. It took him about 20 minutes to take care of that and then he had to be debriefed. Rank hath it's privileges there, he was fourth in line and after about fifteen more minutes he was on his way to his shower. Ten minutes later and two of the three wishes had been granted. He grinned to himself, only one to go, he thought as he pulled on a clean uniform leaving his balaclava aside on a shelf. He finished up and beat a slow, steady path to the Motor Pool, and wish number three.  
  
The sight that greeted him upon entering was quite satisfying. Her nicely rounded rump and legs stuck out from under the hood of her newest project car. It was a rather battered and badly damaged 1969 Stingray L71. It was a primer gray for now, but the engine was shaping up to be a beauty. He'd noticed her working on it for months now. Clutch and a couple other grease monkeys were loitering nearby throwing appraising glances at he blatantly female posterior. Beach sent them a patented Drill Instructor's glare causing them to immediately desist and find things to do outside the motor pool.  
  
The radio was blaring some heavy metal song that Beach didn't know, but she apparently did singing along between curses at her task. He grinned to himself and shook his head, since the guys had been kind enough to leave them alone in the large garage Beach Head decided to play a little. He didn't usually, but he was willing to give it a try if only to see her reaction to it. He sneaked silently up behind her and slid appreciative hands down her sides and over the soft curve of her cheeks.  
  
She started and swore violently when she banged, what he hoped wasn't her head, on something under the hood. "Goddamnit! Clutch! Your balls are mine!" She came out in a rage, socket wrench swinging. He'd been ready for it and blocked her shot easily. She froze at the grinning face before her. "Wayne?" His grin widened.  
  
"Christ Courtney, after a month of not seein' each other I'da thought you'd be happy to see me, not try to take my head off with a wrench." He stepped closer and slid his hands around and down her ass again pulling her close. "And if that Gear Head is bothering you that much I'm surprised he's still standin."  
  
"Well, actually, he hasn't done anything like that since my first days with Joe, and the last time the Torque Wrench was introduced to his manhood." Wayne winced at the image. "But he was the only one around earlier, so I assumed." She was staring openly, his hands still cupped her behind. She didn't quite know how to react to him in this mood. "When did you get back?"  
  
"Bout an hour ago. You busy here?" He glanced around to make sure no one had wandered back in.  
  
"Not really, why?" He slid a hand up her back to her neck and pulled her in to kiss her softly. The wrench dropped to the cement floor with a clang and she wrapped her arms around him holding him to the kiss for long moments.  
  
"Cause, I missed the hell outta you and twenty minutes alone in that tent wasn't near enough time to reassure me that you were okay." She slowly realized that his hands were now on her hips keeping her close. She smiled and let herself rest against his heat.  
  
"I'm fine, Beach, Doc says I'm healing nicely. The bands come off my ribs in a few days." She held him snugly to her for a moment before letting him pull back to look at her in surprise.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me they were broke that night?" He was suddenly tense against her.  
  
"I didn't know, Beach, relax. Doc said there was too much bruising to be sure." She explained.  
  
"Relax? I held you so tight I probably made 'em worse that night." He let go and pulled away.  
  
"If it had hurt don't you think I'd have let you know." She shook her head, 'so he's a regular man worried about the same shit like all the rest.' She thought silently letting a soft smile play across her face. "Come here and help me clear this up and we can get outta here."  
  
Beach Head looked around them at the tools scattered over her workbench and gave her a dry look. "This is your mess Cinderella." He stooped to pick up the wrench on the floor.  
  
"No, not that?" She waved a dismissive hand toward the mess, and pulled him over to the car. "I'm trying to loosen that bolt." She pointed one out that had a second wrench over the nut on the opposite side. "I'm too short to get good leverage though. Help me out?" Her voice was dripping with honey, and she batted her eyelashes playfully at him.  
  
"Why not just ask one of the grease monkeys?" He asked dryly.  
  
"And have to put up with the condescending smirks and chick bashing comments. No thanks!" She snatched the wrench from him and whirled away. "I'd rather work it loose slowly or just work around the damn thing." With a glare for him she ducked back under the hood.  
  
"Shee-it woman, I didn't say I wouldn't help, just wondered why you didn't ask someone sooner." He ducked under the hood and nudged her aside. A few seconds and a little effort later he had it loose. "Looks like you almost had it, Barbie Doll." He looked over to find her staring at him. Not exactly mad, but neither was her look all that happy. "What?"  
  
"Thanks." Her reply was curt and she took both wrenches and the bolt from him.  
  
"Courtney, what's wrong, I did what you asked." He was a bit put out by her manner. He really had thought that she'd be happy to see him. It hurt a little that it didn't seem to be the case.  
  
"Nothing Beach Head." She started gathering sockets and putting them away in a case.  
  
"For the love of...You know what, I don't have time to try to figure out why you're so pissed at me alluva sudden. When you decide you want to explain it I'll be in my billet." He executed a smart turn on his heel and walked off, until he heard the crash of metal scattering on the concrete and turned back.  
  
Cover Girl's slender frame was hunched down over the tool's she'd dropped, but she wasn't picking anything up. She was shaking. It scared the living shit out of him to see that, and he was quickly back at her side. "Courtney? Court, what's wrong?" He took her arms and raised her to face him. She could barely stand when he let go, so he pulled her to him, more bewildered by the moment and still worried. "Want me to take you to see Doc?" A negative shake of the head. "Damn it! What's wrong?"  
  
"I'm sorry." The apology was muffled by his shoulder. "I don't know what's wrong with me, why I did that." Her grip on him was tight, desperate.  
  
"Shhh, you okay?" He decided to try patience for once.  
  
She nodded, "yeah, I feel like an ass, but okay." His arms tightened around her and he muttered a 'thank God.'  
  
"Let me help you get this mess picked up and we'll go somewhere private to talk." He ran his fingers through her hair. During their mission in Brazil he'd noticed that her hair had grown after they'd liberated her, now with a month's extra growth it was almost to her waist, and as richly auburn as it always had been in the evening sunlight.  
  
"You don't have to, it is my mess." She pulled back, but he stopped her from going too far.  
  
"No I don't, but I want to." He really wanted to cup her cheek in his palm and make the haunted look in her eyes disappear, but he knew he'd better wait on that. Instead, he let her go and crouched down on the balls of his feet to start picking up tools. They cleaned up in charged silence and he led her out when they'd finished.  
  
"Where?--"  
  
"Told you some where to talk. I don't want interruptions or busy-bodies pokin' their noses around." They continued on his heading, walking more closely than normal, but not so close as to be overly affectionate. Cover Girl found herself following him to his quarters in the barracks. He opened and held the door for her to precede him through. She hesitated, never having been into his personal space. He shook his head amused at her indecision. "It's okay, Darlin,' my bark is worse than my bite. You know that better than anybody." His smile wasn't large, he rarely did smile, but it reassured her and she walked in, rubbing suggestively against him as she passed. He trailed after her and closed the door behind him.  
  
His quarters weren't all that different from hers. The bed was a little larger, a full size to her twin, but it was shoved against the back wall like hers to leave space for a sitting area. A closet to the side of the bed and a bathroom on the wall opposite the door. A tall dresser against another wall, and a small couch with matching chair in front of a TV on a shelf. A neat row of books stood on the level below the TV, all of them non-fiction, and most dealing with history or the military. A few manuals on combat training and the like sprinkled the collection and a single book on the Watergate trials went with them.  
  
The TV remote and a lamp stood on top of a small refrigerator beside the bed doubling as his nightstand. A book that was half-finished lay there as well; he'd obviously abandoned it for their mission. In all it was what she'd expected from him; clean to the point of meticulous, but surprisingly comfortable. "Want sumthin' to drink? I think Etienne left some cola here last time we watched a game. I'd stay clear of the rest though. After well over a month it's all spoiled. Even the orange juice is bad." He opened the small fridge and pulled out a Coke.  
  
"Thanks," she took it from him and popped the top for a long pull on the carbonated drink. He watched her, seeing the fatigue in her posture, and the dark circles and bags under her eyes. She lowered the cola and he raised a hand to cup her face now that them were alone. She nestled her into his touch, noting that the broad palm was warm and it helped ease some of her tension.  
  
"I never thought I could miss someone this much, Courtney, but God I missed you." She set the drink on top of the fridge as he drew her in to his body. He was warm, solid muscle and she felt safe in his arms. She sighed resting her body near his.  
  
"I missed you too, Wayne. I've talked to Psych about things there, but it never helped, nothing did. This does." Her arms snaked around his trim waistline and held him tightly. He placed his lips on her forehead and started kneading the rock hard knots from her shoulders and neck.  
  
"We didn't get near enough time, that night, in Duke's tent to be comfortably sure you were back safe." His lips brushed her forehead as he spoke, and she sighed against his neck. The worst of the tension in her shoulders eased under his practiced touch. "Tell me what's got you wound up so tight you're about to snap, Cinderella."  
  
"Nightmares." She moved her head down onto his shoulder then and breathed deeply the sharp scent of Dial brand soap. "I haven't had a decent night's sleep since that last night in the Cayman Motel."  
  
Beach Head's hands slid down from her shoulders, now relaxed, dancing soothingly down her back to her slender waist, he pulled her tight to his chest. "Wanna talk about 'em?"  
  
"I already talked to Psych about them." Her voice was quiet and nothing more was forthcoming.  
  
"Did you explain the dreams to him, goin' into detail on 'em?" A negative shake against him. "Would you be willin' to tell me, Darlin?' " He wasn't trying to push her, but he knew enough about nightmares. He had a million of his own. Talking with someone you trust was really the best way to end them in his experience. The question was, did she trust him enough to bare her fears in front of him. He knew it wouldn't be easy for her, his status with the team made him hard to those around him, and it generally meant that the soldiers under him didn't want to show him their weakness.  
  
"Wayne, you don't want to hear what's going on in my head. It's dark and scary in there." He chuckled a little at that, and she grinned at her success. She'd never heard of anyone else that could make him laugh. The most anyone got was a lifting of the corner of his mouth. A sort of a twitch if you will. She hugged him closer for a moment.  
  
" If your head is dark and scary that must make mine down right petrifying. You're right though, if I'd wanted to listen to you ramble then I'd have locked us in my billet." He pulled away and turned to lock the door. "Sorry, my mistake, guess I just did." He said when he turned back to her and leaned against his door. Courtney was watching him stunned. He looked her straight in the eye, as intensely serious as he'd ever been. "I ain't kiddin' around, Courtney, if you want to tell me I'll listen. If you don't we can do sumthin' else."  
  
Courtney studied him for a moment. The intense hazel eyes waiting for her decision, under a brow that too often held a scowl or a frown. The hard chin and soft lips that too rarely saw a smile. His thick neck and broad shoulders bulging in the thin T-shirt. They in turn led to muscled arms the taught sleeves of the shirt straining around his biceps. She could see the veins running down them and followed one line onto his forearms. Those forearms, lightly haired with a sheen of auburn and as built as the rest of him. They made her feel safe when clamped around her, and his broad gentle hands ran through her hair. This thought brought her appraisal to an abrupt end and she nodded to him then. "Okay, I'll try." The left side of his mouth raised in a half-smile for her.  
  
"Make yourself comfortable then, and we'll see about getting you your sweet dreams back." She surprised him then, instead of walking over to his couch or the chair, she stepped forward and rested against him. "What're you doin', Darlin'?"  
  
"This is the most comfortable I can think of being right now, Wayne." She rubbed her face into the hard planes of his chest.  
  
"Okay, it's a start but I meant pick a spot to sit." She could hear amusement in his voice colored with a satisfaction that was very subtle. She realized that it pleased him to be able to offer her, with her capable independence, a safe haven in his arms.  
  
"Really, well then, I pick your lap." She said playfully and reached up to kiss the strong chin. He exhaled sharply, but shook his head in satisfaction at her forward manner and wry humor. It was something he would always love about her. Of course not so long ago it had annoyed the shit out of him, but he'd learned to live with it. He kissed her forehead briefly and deliberately caressed his hand down over her back and slowly traced the curve of her rear, until she shivered against him, to her thighs. He got a grip and lifted her into his arms. Courtney let out a surprised squeak but wrapped her legs around his hips while he walked to the couch.  
  
He settled them in a corner. "Whenever you're ready, beautiful." Her arms tightened around him with that compliment.  
  
"Where should I start?" Her warmth surrounded him, and Wayne took a moment to feel her against him. Her weight on his thighs and the strong legs around his waist now. He could feel the outlines of her breasts soft resting against his chest, and noted that she fit comfortably on his lap, the legs around him seated her perfectly over him. They were meant to be like this, he thought. He ran his hands down her back and back up again slowly.  
  
"First off, are there more than one or is it the same scene over and over?" His fingers twisted and tangled in her hair and smoothed it out soothing her and letting her know he was there for her.  
  
"There are a few. Their effects on me range from merely disturbing to terrified complete with a panic attack." She sighed against him shivering momentarily and he knew that it wasn't in pleasure.  
  
Wayne tightened his hold on her for a bit and his lips caressed her brow this time when she shivered it wasn't in fear. "Start with the merely disturbing and move slowly up to the terrified in sequence. Might be easier that way." He suggested, in high spirits with her in his lap, but as determined now as he'd been in anything else to help her. She sighed again, this time happy that he cared so much about her.  
  
"The merely disturbing takes place during my interrogation, I'm strapped into that damn chair again. My muscles are spasming all on their own again at his will. I'm so tired all I want is to sleep, but the jerking eyelids won't allow that. When it finally stops I can see him, which is weird, I never saw his face while I was down there, I only knew who he was because I recognized his voice. Anyway, he pulls Cobra Commander's hood down over his face and laughs that maniacal laugh." She stopped momentarily and shuddered, Wayne stroked his hands over her upper arms to help with the shudders.  
  
She regained her balance and continued. "I look back to myself and the electrodes are not there any longer. They've changed into vipers and they've got their fangs in me. I can feel the venom pumping into my body making me slow and tired and sick." She was holding tightly to Wayne, less at ease than she had been. He kept his arms moving, hands stroking her soothing her discomfort. "I sometimes wake up mid-scream with that one."  
  
He was quiet for a long moment thinking it over. "Sounds to me like yer mind is trying to analyze the guy. We knew they were working with Cobra even if we couldn't find the connection. The hood being pulled down is you trying to figure out that connection, and the vipers bitin' you is your uncertainty as to the accuracy of you're mind's ideas on it. The sickness and such could be you're feelings over not knowing for sure."  
  
"I was mulling over that connection the first night that one hit me. I suppose you're right." Courtney admitted, taking a deep breath and hoping this would help her.  
  
"We found that Cobra connection. MARS was designin' the weapons you were buildin'. Speakin' of, how's your hand doin'?" She leaned away bringing her hands between them to show him her palms. Her right hand had only a few minor scars that would probably fade in time. The left palm was a different story though. A large, jagged pink scar ran from just outside her pinky through the center of her hand to the heel of her palm, below her thumb. A second scar, smaller than the first, started in the webbing between her thumb and index finger, and went straight down onto her wrist, if only just barely.  
  
Wayne traced them both with the tip of one finger while holding her hand still. He finished and raised her palm for a kiss. Then he caught and held her gaze intensely. Very carefully, his eyes locked with hers, Wayne meticulously followed the scars with his tongue.  
  
"Wayne..." His name was a sigh from her lips and he liked it much better than the scream that still haunted him in sleep. He placed another kiss to the center of her palm and lowered her hand between them.  
  
"Those going to interfere with movement?" He was professionally interested.  
  
"Doc doesn't think so. No problems so far anyway." She burrowed back against him.  
  
"Good, what's next?" He'd purposely distracted her to make telling him less stressful, but he wouldn't say he hadn't enjoyed distracting her like that.  
  
"Well, there are two that I've had they're mostly the same dream, but my role in them is different. I figured them out already, and they've stopped for the most part, but I still sometimes wake up after one of them shivering and scared. I don't know if you'll want to hear them."  
  
"I'll be alright Courtney, but if not you can take a turn helpin' me." He was sincere and cupping her face in his hands again.  
  
"Okay. They have to do with my feelings of weakness and helplessness there in the work camp when I woke up after the interrogation. In the dream I'm too weak to stop the guards this time. In the first one they rape me, and in the second it's a girl beside me. She might be fifteen, possibly not even that old. I knew her briefly in the work house. She was killed in an accident with the metal we were cutting, nearly decapitated." She clung to him now shivering and fighting her tears.  
  
"Shh, let it go, Courtney. I'm here with ya, you need to let it go, that's why you're dreamin' about her," he held her head still and kissed her cheek. "That's my girl, let it all out." She'd started sobbing into his chest and he held her and stroked her wherever he could reach. Kissing and caressing. Later his actions would surprise her a bit, she'd never thought of Sergeant hard ass, bastard, Drill Instructor, Sneeden as being that compassionate with another person. She would feel honored that he let her see that side of him.   
  
It was long minutes before her grief subsided, and she held tightly, silent to him. He was rocking her she realized, and it made her want to weep all over again. He was taking care of her like no one had since she was a little girl. "You didn't talk to Psych about that one did you?" He asked quietly. She shook her head no.  
  
"I tried to, but it was too raw, and too personal. It was almost my head that was in the way. She saw the sheet start to shift and stepped up to stop it, to keep me from being hurt. I had helped her before, to keep the guards away from her, when they tried to rape her that first day I woke up. A lot of them tried to rape a lot of the women. There were two that tried for me, but they didn't count on you're self-defense training to kick in and were both dead before they knew what hit them. Their buddies were going after other women and the girl was one of them. She'd been through it before, many times, and they weren't easy on her. When I killed the first two, the others left their sport and came to punish me. She stuck close after that. Didn't say a word, no one knew her name, but she kept me company for the first few weeks." She stopped then and finally noticed how ramrod stiff he was against her.  
  
"They tried--" He got out through teeth clenched in outrage. She leaned back and cupped his face forcing him to meet her gaze. The golden hue was gone from his eyes leaving them a stormy green rage and she smoothed his scowl away with her fingers and a long tender kiss.  
  
"But they didn't thanks to you and the training you gave me." She kissed him again, needing to feel his lips covering her own. As her lips slid over his, Wayne relaxed and held her to it, turning the kiss somewhat passionate toward it's end. She pulled away breathless but with a saucy smile just for him. "Thank you for teaching me how to take care of myself, Wayne."  
  
"No thanks necessary, princess, you know that torturing the lot of you is my pleasure." He joked with her.  
  
"Do I ever. Can't wait to get back to it either." She snuggled closer resting her head on his shoulder deciding it was time to get back to it. "In the dream I can't move and I'm forced to watch them violate me. Its like I'm seeing it from another's eyes, but it's me that I see." She felt him stiffen again and reached up to pull her fingers through his hair. "I tried to stop them but was just too weak. After the third or fourth time I had that dream, I lay awake and analyzed it. I found that my weakness bothered me more than the violation of my body. The fact that it's my duty to protect those weaker than myself and I wasn't able is what was causing the dream. Once I figured that out they stopped mostly, except when it was the girl I was seeing. I still have that one."  
  
He was tense again, and she brought her hands up to his shoulders. She leaned back to look at him and his eyes were distant. Courtney knew what that haze over them was showing him. "Wayne, look at me. I'm fine. The two that tried didn't get the chance. I shoved one's nose up into his brain and broke the other's neck. I killed two more of them when came to beat me into submission. No one tried me after that. Get that look off your face."  
  
"What look?" His voice was heavy when his eyes met hers she read sorrow there along with the malice toward his imagined foes.  
  
"The look that promises death by a slow and painful technique. There's no need for it, Ranger Man, you taught me well." He took her hands down from his shoulders and held them between them tightly as if they were his life line.  
  
"Sorry, that's one thing I worried most about when we lost you. That they were doin' those things to you, and I wasn't there to help stop 'em. I know you can take care of yourself," he added at the look on her face, "but I wouldn't be any kinda man if the thought of you bein'..." He couldn't finish and took a deep breath in through his mouth and let it back out his nose before continuing. "If that didn't bother me, well, lets just say that it scares me more to not care that it's happening, than it does to know it is happening and know I'm helpless to stop it." His hands slid into her silken mane and pulled her head down to his shoulder over his heart, and he held her there tightly. "I'm just glad you're safe now." His face was buried in her hair.  
  
"You obviously do care, Wayne, or you wouldn't be like this." She felt him trembling, not obviously so, one would never know unless you were pressed as closely as she was to him. She did know though and it made a piece of her ache for him. She kissed his neck and ran her fingers through the short hair on the back of his head. He shivered this time and his arms were like iron bands holding her against him. "Besides those weren't even close to the worst dream anyway." She said into his neck, now clinging to him as desperately as he was her. Her voice was strained and he kissed the bridge of her nose.  
  
"You sound like you need a minute, go get yer Coke."  
  
"Come with me?" She asked shyly, knowing it was all of a few steps, but wanting him near now that the images from her nightmare were roaming over her mind and flashing across her vision. She didn't want to be far from him. She slid off his lap and pulled him up with her. Then led him by the hand back over to the fridge where her Coke can was sitting in a ring of sweat.  
  
He used the ten steps it took to admire her from behind. Her feet were small in the socks, he didn't remember her taking off her boots, but there they were sitting by the door. His eyes followed the slope of her feet up over delicate ankles to her calves. The khaki pants hid them from view, but he knew they were well formed of hard muscle covered in soft skin and shaven smooth. Her thighs were outlined in the tight pants nearing her slim nicely curved hips and he'd never tire of the sight of her luscious rear end.  
  
Her waist was trim in the almost too tight shirt. Her back was smooth under the cotton and her upper arms showed a tantalizing bulge of muscle. It fit with her build though, not the overly garish look that a body builder would have. The auburn-brown hair shimmered down her back in the dim light hiding her graceful neck. Then they were there and she let go of him to take another long drink of her beverage. He moved to sit on one corner of his bed and discard his own boots.  
  
Courtney watched him intently rolling the can absently between her palms. Wayne's hard back was to her as he sat on the end of the bed untying and tossing his boots aside. The play of muscle under his shirt pulled at her. She put the can aside and slipped onto the bed behind him. She slid her arms around under his to rest across his chest and stomach, and she liked how nicely his hips rested in the cradle of her thighs around him. Her head pressed firmly against him, and Wayne stiffened feeling the swell of her breasts squashed against his ribs.   
  
"Courtney, what're you doin'?" His voice had deepened and sounded exquisite in her ears as it rumbled through him making her squirm. Her writhing caused a low moan from him and his hands slid onto her thighs around him. He squeezed them gently and let his thumbs stroke just inside them. She squirmed again before answering.  
  
"Couldn't resist, this last one is a doozie and I need to feel all of you here safe with me." Her voice was quiet, frightened.  
  
"Okay, Darlin' I'm here, tell me about it." His hands moved to cover hers.  
  
"It starts on the chopper, when I slip." His hands tightened on hers and his body went suddenly rigid, she was quick to continue. "Only this time it's a little different. I still fall, but not because they shoot me." It was her turn to go stiff and her voice became haunted.  
  
"You're holding on to me, pulling me up, telling me you won't let me go. We take fire and sparks fly over the rotors above us. Everything slows down at this point, I'm looking in your eyes, and bullets are flying all around us. I see you take a hit in the arm holding mine. I start to fall, and I see the second bullet hit." Her voice was soft now, trembling with emotion. "It hits you in the neck I see the blood spray and your body goes slack hanging half-out the side of the chopper. I scream then, knowing you're dead. That is when I wake up." He could hear her barely holding it together now. Her voice was weak, and she shivered constantly against him.  
  
"I ain't dead, Courtney. I'm right here with you now." He urged her to uncurl from around him, and turned bringing a leg up onto the bed. Then he pulled her legs over, across his and stroked up and down her them. He looked her over taking note of the eyes that were red with restrained tears. "This the one that gives you the panic attack?" All she could do was nod her head, allowing her bangs to fall forward and cover her anxious distress. "Come here, beautiful."  
  
Wayne brushed the hair aside and opened his arms to her. Courtney molded herself to his side. He took her hand and placed it over his sternum, just above his solar plexus. "Breathe with me, Darlin'." He took slow deliberate breaths until he felt her tears on his breast. He pulled her back into his lap then and held her while she cried. He found that this time her tears affected him differently. Before he'd only wanted to hold her and comfort her. Maybe it was because they were tears for him now, he didn't know, but he wanted them to stop. He hated that she was in this pain over him. "All this for me?" He said in wonder, "the thought of me dyin' effects you like this?" She nodded against him, and he pulled her face up with a light finger under her chin. "Courtney, Darlin', I love you too." Her watery blues went wide and he smiled full and beautiful for her. "That's what the dream is tellin' you, you know?" The gold in his eyes was sparkling again.  
  
"Does it? I do, but...I, do." He tucked her hair back again and wiped away the remnants of her tears.  
  
"When you react like that, it's just your subconscious tryin' to let ya know." He was still smiling at her. Through all the turmoil in her mind she noticed that the smile transformed his face. Attractive on a regular day, this man was down right gorgeous with that smile on his lips.  
  
"How do you know that?" She intertwined their fingers.  
  
"All those weeks you were missin' I dreamed similar things about you. When I'd wake up it felt like one o' the SHARCs was sittin' on my chest. Every night 'til I realized I had to care a damn lot about you to feel like that." He shrugged running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "Then we found you, and I knew it was love, not just carin'." Courtney pulled him down to her for a passionate battle between lips and tongues.  
  
He pushed her back on the bed and straddled her lap taking control from her. Exploring her mouth thoroughly for the first time since that night in Brazil. She tasted sweet, a hint of the cola was still on her breath, but it wasn't unpleasant. He tickled the roof of her mouth and heard her muffled whimper only after he felt it vibrate through his mouth. It pulled a soft groan from him in response.  
  
She broke the kiss and slid back fully onto the bed. He sat back on his haunches regarding her smugly. "Where you think you're goin' Doll?"  
  
"You said get comfortable. I'm comfy now." She sighed resting back against his pillows while he traced intoxicating designs on her sock covered feet. "Wayne, you're the fourth in command here, why don't you have larger quarters?" She asked suddenly curious.  
  
"Didn't really need a lot of space, so I turned 'em down." He answered dryly as though that were obvious.  
  
"You didn't turn down the bed though," she grinned wickedly, "planning on using the extra room?"  
  
"I didn't so much before, just nice to have the extra room to spread out while you're sleepin'. Now, though, I think I might put in for a queen insteada this full." His southern accent was thicker than before, a sign she knew from that night that she was having an effect on him. She grinned again and with a crooked finger beckoned him forward. He shook his head in the negative. "Nope, not 'til you say it out loud." He was deliberately cryptic.  
  
"What, that I want you up here so I can cuddle with you and drive you crazy?" She asked through hooded eyes.  
  
The look played havoc with his sex drive but he reigned it in. " You already drive me crazy, I don't need to be in the bed with you for that. Nope, I want you to tell me what your dream was tryin' to tell you."  
  
"Oh," she smiled shyly at him.  
  
"In all fairness, Darlin', I'll share that I was tryin to tell you in Duke's tent that night, when I didn't know the right words. I couldn't get them out." He gripped her ankles now, lightly massaging her Achilles tendons between thumbs and forefingers.  
  
"I love you, Wayne." She said simply, and he slithered up her body to kiss her powerfully before lying beside her.  
  
"I know, I just never planned on hearin' it directed at me before." He was nonchalant about it, and that saddened her a little.  
  
"Never wanted it?" She asked sliding her hand up his stomach and onto his chest.  
  
"Not exactly, just never thought there'd be a place for it. Hard to have love in your life when you're never around to be in your life anyway. I never expected to find a woman that was as damn stubborn and wonderful as you are, and that would put up with my shit. I ain't exactly a giant teddy bear like Duke, or a poet in disguise like everyone's favorite Warrant Officer." His hand came up to rest over hers.  
  
"Definitely not my type, either of them, no challenge at all." She giggled softly at his snort of amusement.  
  
"Scarlett and Lady Jaye might argue with you on that. As much as those two can be romantic sissies, they are soldiers, career military at that, it makes for hard men." He was being surprisingly honest without his usual critical manner.  
  
"Maybe they've just had enough time with their ladies to mellow out a little. You're being pretty romantic and sweet right now, all evening really." She rubbed his chest with the fingers under his hand, rolling closer to him to throw her right leg over his and wedge it between his thighs.  
  
"Only with you, Cinderella, only with you, and never on the trainin' course." He said softly tracing her fingers with his.  
  
"Never." She agreed with a grin. Her breath tickled his ear, and made his pants seem tighter. He turned his face to hers for a kiss that by the end of it had her astraddle his hips leaning over him and rocking against him as she pulled away. She spread out over him slipping her arms around his when he brought them up to hold her in place.  
  
"You hungry, it's probably around 2000 hours by now." He asked into the comfortable silence that had fallen.  
  
"Not really, you?" She nuzzled his chin with her nose.  
  
"Only for you, Darlin'." His hands smoothed down her back and over the slope of her ass pressing her against the hardness in his BDUs.  
  
"Mmm, so I see." She nipped his chin gently and he swelled against her.  
  
"Woman, don't tease unless you're gonna follow through on it." He squeezed her cheeks, and she noticed that his voice was tight under control.  
  
"Who's teasing, Hard Ass?" She ground down on him deliberately, eliciting a deep groan.  
  
"It ain't my ass that's hard right now, Darlin'." He ran his hands back up and under her shirt onto slick skin until they encountered the bands wrapped tightly around her ribs. Reality slammed viciously back into him, and he sighed regret. "Guess I'll have to settle for holdin' you close and letting our mouths have all the fun for a while."  
  
"Why babe?" She asked with a confused look.  
  
"Don't want to hamper these mendin', I don't want to hurt you worse." She felt his fingers lightly trace the edge of her bandages. "And don't suggest takin' things slow and gentle, 'cause I can promise if it happens tonight that ain't how it's gonna be."  
  
"Okay, then what can we do?" She was pouting now.  
  
"I can hold you like this all night, or," he rolled her off him facing her away from him and scooted up behind her, "like this. Even like this." He urged her to face him and when she did he traced her lips with his tongue until she pulled it in and kissed him fervently.  
  
"This is nice." She said when they pulled back. His fingers were still inside her shirt tracing the skin between her pants and the bandages. "We should have done this in the motel in Brazil." She ran her hands under his T-Shirt, after pulling it free of his pants, through the hair on his belly and around onto his smooth, hairless, muscled back exploring the contours until they both shuddered.  
  
"No way we coulda gotten away with this on the mission. Too distracting, and we'da never got anything done. Besides this is much nicer than that dump was, more I don't know, cozy-like." He smoothed her hair down away from her neck to place a line of delicate kisses on the warm skin. She hummed content that turned into a yawn. "Tired?"  
  
"A bit, mind if I crash for a while?" Even her voice showed her fatigue.  
  
"Not at all Darlin' I'll keep watch for a while, though if you don't mind." He slid his free arm around her waist again and curled the one she was using as a pillow down around her shoulder and flat on her back, keeping her close.  
  
"As long as you don't let me go." She was drifting, he heard it in her voice. She buried herself in his chest. Her arm snaked over his hip and she gripped his rear end briefly before running it back up under his shirt and settling in. "You know that as soon as I'm cleared, you're in big trouble right?"  
  
"Wouldn't have it any other way, beautiful. Sleep, Court, I've got you." He ran his fingers through her hair until her breathing was deep and even, and let his fingers roam until he too slept. Neither of them had problems with dreams that night. 


End file.
